A new survey of leading executives by machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) Aeris Communications, Inc. has found that many see the value in IoT enterprise deployments, while still noting that there are significant challenges ahead.

The survey polled 200 decision makers in the United States and 100 in the United Kingdom (IT managers, head of IT, IT directors, CIOs) from large private enterprise organizations (over 1,000) and discovered that 74 percent of respondents indicate that they feel IoT provides their organizations with the opportunity to better meet key business objectives, with 71 percent agreeing that IoT will help them achieve a competitive edge.

Other aspects of IoT implementation also received positive responses, with 71 percent agreeing that their organizations IoT strategy gave them a competitive advantage over competitors, 69 percent saying that their organization is equipped to oversee the collection, management and storage of data from our device sensors, 69 percent again agreeing with that their organization is currently leveraging effective analytics to gain visibility into IoT data, with a surprising 62 percent agreeing that their organization primarily develops IoT and M2M applications in-house.

A majority of respondents did agree though that the implementation of an IoT strategy wouldn’t necessarily be easy, with 76 percent saying that developing an IoT application and enabling for different platforms is a challenge, along with IoT application enterprise-wide data and application systems is a challenge, 72 percent agreed that collecting, managing and storing the data from the device sensors is a challenge, along with the analyzing the application-specific sensor data and connectivity data to obtain useful insights, and finally 66 percent saying that building the IoT device and the required sensor hardware is also a challenge.

“While the research uncovered some intriguing differences across geographies and industries, the generally held consensus is that the opportunities will be met with challenges,” Aeris Vice President of Enterprise Marketing Janet Jaiswal said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “As the number of connected devices grows, organizations will not only be under increased pressures to better manage their devices and obtain data-generated insights to improve operational efficiencies, but they will also need a deeper understanding of how best to address the complexities associated with connectivity and data consumption to lower operational costs.”

Future growth

One of the interesting takeaways from the poll was that a diverse range of industries were looking at implement IoT strategies if they hadn’t already done so, covering financial services, retail, transport and distribution, and manufacturing.

Although how each enterprise would implement IoT strategies was not covered, support was reasonably spread, however there was a geographic difference with respondents in the United States being more positive and keen on IoT versus their counterparts in the United States, with U.S. executives (86 percent) being more optimistic than their U.K. counterparts (51 percent) in regard to how IoT would enable them to better meet their objectives.

Forecasts are said to estimate that nearly 5 billion connected devices will be utilized in the enterprise this year alone, so it’s little surprise that more and more decision makers are positively embracing IoT strategies.

Image credit: Aeris